Translation

Commentary

A similar specimen, with a slightly different inscription, is published in Spink I, no. 44.

This seal and BZS.1958.106.5699 show that while doux of Antioch Skleros rose frommagistros to proedros; a letter of Michael Keroularios dated to June/July 1054, which addresses him as proedros and doux of Antioch, indicates that this promotion took place shortly before this time. Other seals, showing a change of patron saint from St. George to St. Michael, proclaim Skleros proedros, doux of Antioch, and stratopedarches of the East (REG 13 [1900]: 471–73; Likhachev, Molivdovuly, 104, pl. LXIII, 9; Seyrig, no. 159; SBS 5 [1998]: 147), but it remains uncertain whether he attained this latter ofﬁce before being dismissed by the empress Theodora (between August 1055 and September 1056; cf. Laurent, Vatican, 91–92), or, as is more likely, upon his restoration as doux of Antioch early in 1057 by Isaakios Komnenos, out of gratitude for Skleros’s support of his successful rebellion against Michael VI (cf. Seibt, Skleroi, 79–82; Todt, “Region,” 298–300). Skleros’s star continued to rise under this emperor, as shown by a seal (Spink I, no. 86) that records his subsequent promotion to kouropalates.